


Five Scenes Of Harry Hart's Life Before and After The End of the World

by Velocity_Owl87



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, F/M, Fix-It, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Gender Issues, Harry Hart Lives, Hopeful Ending, Injury Recovery, Introspection, Major Character Injury, Mentor/Protégé, Miscarriage, Older Woman/Younger Man, Original Character(s), Past Relationship(s), Roman Catholicism, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 07:41:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velocity_Owl87/pseuds/Velocity_Owl87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hero "Harry" Hart's life from uneventful childhood, disastrous youth, Kingsman Agency, the end of the world and the aftermath of what could be and what is with the person that she least expected to have it with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Scenes Of Harry Hart's Life Before and After The End of the World

**Author's Note:**

> I have seen many Fem! Eggsy Unwin fics, but very few where Harry Hart is gender-swapped. I guess the idea of Eggsy having it on with an older Harry and the life that should have possibly lead before meeting Lee or Eggsy. Harry in the movie seems sort of solitary and a bit closed off and I wanted to explore why that would be the case, but with a genderswap.
> 
> And Female Harry Hart is Haley Atwell, since the Harry in this AU is in her mid to late thirties.
> 
> Proofed and edited, but if mistakes persist, I will fix them at a later date.

_The Girl_

Her father had been the one to choose the name for her. He had been a small time actor when he had been an undergrad and had loved to participate in park productions of Shakespeare and Marlowe. It had been during a memorably warm summer in Bristol that he had met her mother. She had been the Hero to his Claudio.

That had been the reason she had been named Hero Imogen Hart and her little brother had somehow gotten away with John Benedict Hart. They still weren't sure as to who got the worst out of the deal and did commiserate with each other whenever they met up in Hampshire as per family protocol dictated that they should.

It wasn't anything acrimonious that kept them away from their hometown and each other. Her brother was a pilot and he was everywhere as per his job dictated. He had a family in Bristol and their parents still had the house as it was when they were younger. Her nieces and nephews ran around the place during the Christmas holidays and hopefully for Christmas mass.

 If she wasn't away on a mission or too beat up from one, she'd be there as well. But as it was, she tried to keep them at a distance from her actual life and was quite glad to pretend to be the same girl when she came home, sleeping under the faded band and sports posters of her youth and sitting in the same pew as they had done for as long as she could recall.

Despite the odd name and the fact that she was Catholic rather than the usual C&E, she had a happy childhood in small town Hampshire. She recalled quite a few years of running amok as a tomboy and then coming into her own in Sixth Form, both academically and socially. She wasn't at the top of the heap, nor was she at the bottom of the social ladder. She was well liked, but closed off. No one was very close to her and she mostly kept her nose buried in books.

Rugby had saved her somewhat, despite the snide implications of being a lesbian and that had been where she had been saddled with the “Harry” moniker after a match where she had been one of the key players and had pissed off the other team. They meant it as a taunt, but all it did was earn her respect. Especially after she had cold-clocked the originator of said taunt across the face and broke her nose. Her team had rallied around her and even though she was banned from the next match, the precedent had been set. She remained Harry for the rest of her school years and she relished it. Even if it came with the troublesome rumours of her supposed Sapphic inclinations.

She had, contradictory to local gossip, lost her virginity at sixteen. To a boy. As much as salacious gossip put her towards liking women, she knew that it wasn't in her nature. She had been curious. Had tried fumbling with some girls in holidays in London and Glasgow, but it had done nothing for her. It had been on a family holiday in Skye that she finally got to indulge with her preferred objects of desire and lose that ignorance regarding sex. It had been to a boy named  Iain with light, piercing blue eyes, a fit body, and a Leith accent that still made her catch her breath sometimes.

They met up a few more times, keeping in touch with letters and the occasional phone call. The last time she had seen him, he had joined the 52nd Lowland Regiment and they had a goodbye tryst in her aunt's cramped guest room before he was off to basic training and then to Bosnia.

They had sent postcards to each other until he had gotten killed in Bosnia. She still had them, somewhere, along with the letter his family passed on in regards to his death. She had cried when she had gotten the letter. A week later, Iain's last postcard had arrived, stained with something dark and asking her to wait for him when he got home after the tour. She had cried for a whole day and worried her mum, who kept depositing cups of tea and delicate sandwiches at her bedside and taking the remains away silently. It wasn't until the third time that she showed up that Harry told her everything.

Her mother had embraced her then, and comforted her as well as she could until Harry felt less raw and more able to cope with the grief that Iain's death had brought. It had lessened, as her mother had predicted. But it had stayed and bloomed raw and anew in ways she couldn't always pinpoint. But as the years passed and she was busy being alive and living, it lessened to just a sore scar that occasionally twinged, rather than bled.

When that happened, she always made sure to light a candle for him wherever she could. It wasn't perfect, but it was better than thinking that he had died and gone onto nothing. Even though he had teased her a bit about the saint's bookmarks she kept tucked in her wallet, he had respected her beliefs and she found some modicum of comfort thinking that Iain had gone onto his great reward. It was the one thing that made acceptance easier to come than it otherwise would have been.

Harry wasn't sure if she did truly love him. He had been a constant in her life during those late teen years. She had enjoyed his company, his letters and the feel of him inside of her.  She had daydreamed and spun castles in the sky with him.  Maybe she had. In a way that could have flowered into something permanent if he had lived.

But she wouldn't ever know that. So she had put her head down and ploughed through her examinations and gotten out with all her A Levels. Her family had been proud and even more so when she had earned a scholarship and a place at Cambridge. The fact that she got a place was enough justification for all the reading and so she went up to University and get some kind of degree.

She had a nebulous idea of what she wanted to do. She only vaguely knew that it would involve English literature. She hadn't been a big reader when she had been younger. Of textbooks, yes. But not of fiction except for what they made her read at school. At least until she had a wonderful teacher in Sixth Form that had introduced her to the wonders that was to read for pleasure. She hadn't looked back since then and she had read her way through most of the accepted British canon before heading up to University.

It had been in her Austen class that she had first come across him.

Tall, self-assured with the pale strawberry blond colouring that she later learned was from a Scandinavian grandmother, he reeked of wealth, privilege and status.  He caught her eye due to his being one of the twelve males in the course and one of the eight who wasn't outright gay and also because he actually _did_ care about Austen's work and contributed to the discussions with as equal zeal as Annabelle, the resident Austenite and Harry herself.  She couldn't help but to notice him and discreetly find out who exactly he was.

Richard Morstan was his name and she could just about imagine the “Sir” being tacked on at the beginning of it later on in life when he took his seat in the House of Lords later on in life. He was everything that was close enough for her to know about, but not touch. He belonged to the upper echelons that her family occasionally aspired to, but didn't really make moves to join unless they were cut-throat enough.

Or had pretty enough daughters and enough money to move said daughters into that vicinity.

Hero was a realist and was quite aware that despite being considered a quiet sort of pretty, she wasn't stunning to have that kind of man that Richard Morstan was panting after her with much more serious intentions than having a quick shag in the pub to brag about to his posh mates with names like Leslie, Frederick and Ashton. He discarded girls like her and married some posh birds or models, like his grandfather had done. He didn't marry women like Harry Hart.

In the end, that's exactly what did happen, though.

At eighteen and a half, Hero Imogen Hart became Lady Morstan after a sex-filled weekend getaway to Paris left her pregnant and his family pressuring him to make what was indubitably the new Morstan heir legitimate.

At nineteen, she miscarried her first child and was approached with an offer to join the Kingsman.

At twenty, she was divorced, no longer Lady Morstan, and had become Galahad.

She never regretted making that decision.

Even when she read that Richard had remarried and had two sons in quick succession.

It wasn't her life any longer.

_The Ingenuine_

It was in the aftermath of a botched mission that took place in Kazakhstan that she began to question if it had been the best choice to make. She had been left with an inflamed bullet wound in her shoulder and nearly delirious with the pain of being shot and was quite alone and lost. They had shut down the terrorist cell that was trying to spring up amongst the Kazakh tribes in the area and had shut down the drug smuggling ring that Merlin had just informed them on. It should have been a routine job, but the two recruits had missed the last sniper. One had his head blown off and the other was kidnapped and Harry could only guess what they were doing with her. She could only guess because she didn't want to think about it anymore than with clinical detachment lest she fall apart and be useless and become the next casualty of the mission.

As it was, Harry had ducked the sniper and taken him out. But not before she had gotten shot in the shoulder.  It shouldn't have shocked her as much as it did. She had been shot at in training and had been grazed in the field a couple of times. But this had been the first time that she had been hit and it had almost knocked her for six. If it hadn't been for her inherent mulishness, she would have probably passed out in that same place she had been shot. It was a good thing she was that stubborn, since it had just given her the impetus to keep moving and get out to headquarters.

That event had been almost twelve hours ago and she was nowhere near the agreed rendezvous point. She was trying to drive there, but her arm wasn't cooperating. At least the jeep was still in her possession, she mused morbidly.  She could return that to Merlin somewhat intact, at least.

It was as if she had just conjured him up just by thinking about him that the channel crackled and she could have cried at hearing his familiar voice, after how many hours of radio silence.

“ _Galahad! Are you there? Galahad! Come on!”_

Harry winced and focused on replying and not giving her handler a heart attack. She actually liked Merlin and she wasn't going to hurry him to an earlier grave than they were destined to in their line of work.

_“Here, Merlin. I'm here.”_

Merlin breathed a sigh of relief at her terse reply.

_“How did it go?”_

Harry bit her lip and kept her eyes on the road. Or what was supposed to be a road.

_“Mission's done. We lost both of the recruits though.”_

She told him, hissing in pain as she drove over a massive pothole like the ones in Kabul she had to manoeuvre over when she had been working an extraction with the now deceased recruits.

Merlin swore quietly at the news, his muttering becoming a comforting drone in her ear as he spoke.

_“What's your status then, Galahad?”_

She winced again when she heard the steady sound of blood dripping and her arm going numb at the blood loss.

_“Not so hot. I got hit in the shoulder by a sniper and I'm way behind for the meet-up.”_

He swore only once, a sharp exclamation that was followed by his fingers clacking over his keyboard as he arranged something. Something fast, she hoped, since she was starting to lose her grip on her consciousness.

_“Gawain's in the area. Just pull over in ten minutes. Got it?”_

She groaned before giving him an affirmative.

_“I know it's hard. But just hang on, will you? Don't let Arthur be right.”_

Harry snorted, laughing weakly at Merlin's words. She had no intention of ever proving that bastard right.

If anything, she enjoyed rubbing it into his face. As one of the few women in the Kingsman, she had to keep up with the boys. She and Isolde had been grudgingly accepted into the field, much to Arthur's chagrin. She suspected that her gender was a bigger affront to Arthur than her background. She was sure that Kay and Tristan were also not public school boys. But their sins were forgiven due to their gender. Nevertheless, she had as high a success rate as Kay and Percival.  So even with her blood pooling on the bottom of the jeep and her arm numb, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She grit her teeth and kept on driving, her anger at the man's pomposity giving her focus and strength that she thought had been used up long ago.

_“I knew that would have lit a fire under you. Not long now. Gawain's just coming up ahead. Keep going, Galahad. Keep going.”_

She listened to him and kept on driving, Merlin's voice in her ear until he told her to stop. She braked abruptly and cried out when she was thrown forward, the steering wheel jamming itself into her shoulder.

“Galahad? Come on, I'll get you home and patched up, allright?”

Harry blinked, her brow furrowing as she tried to place the kind grey eyes of the man whose face was wrapped up in a djeballah, leaving them the only features she could see.  He swore and the world dimmed again. He pulled at her and Harry realized that she must have passed out between the time she had stopped and when Gawain (Surely it must be him) had arrived.  Breathing a sigh of relief, she let go and let herself float under the black waves of blessed unconsciousness.

~*~*~*~*~

She came to in the medical wing, the light coloured walls and stiff, over starched sheets giving her a clue that she wasn't in her own bed. She blearily opened her eyes, winced at the brightness and closed them again before trying one more time to join in the land of the living. Once she had done that, she was treated to the sight of Merlin sitting there with his laptop, key clacking away softly as he waited for her to wake up.

“How long was I out?”

Harry rasped, her throat swollen and her mouth dry from the drugs in her system.

“Just over a day. Easy. Don't overdo it.”

Merlin replied, holding a cup with a straw in it for her to get hydrated. He took it away when it was half full and Harry felt much better.

They sat in silence, with Harry watching Merlin finish typing up what he was working on before he saved it and closed his laptop, putting it away in its bag before turning his attention to her.

He cleared his throat and Harry sighed as she tried to sit up, the task made difficult by the wound in her shoulder and by her arm being strapped to her chest tightly. She made a small sound of defeat when the pain got to be too much and instead glared at Merlin.

“If you're going to reprimand me, I'd appreciate it if you didn't drag it out.”

Merlin frowned and returned the glare with one of his own before clearing his throat and finally speaking.

“I am not here to reprimand you.  After all, the mission was successful and you couldn't have foreseen that Arthur's recruit would have missed such a glaring error. No. It is a shame about Vivian's recruit. She will eventually recover. But she's out of the running now.”

Harry made a soft sound at that.  She hadn't meant to forget the recruit. Evelyn, Evelyn Hopewell was her name and at the mention of fate, the searing guilt came back in full force.

“Merlin, I-”

Merlin fixed with a look that made whatever she was going to say dry up in her throat.

“It wasn't your call, Harry. You all had a job to do and they paid the price for their carelessness. It is the risk that we take when we go out into the field. You did the best that you could out there, leading them in the field. The objective was met. That was the best possible outcome from the situation.”

Merlin sighed and leaned forward, looking at her not unkindly as he reached out and patted her free hand.

“You did what you could. Missions don't always end up cut and dried.”

She knew he was right. She did what she could have done in the field. She had trusted them to have known how to react to the situation and when they hadn't, she had stepped up to the plate. But still...

“You didn't make a bad call, Hero. Remember that. Galahad wasn't just a position given to you. You can't control all the variables all the time. But you can control the choices you have made and they were the best that you could have made at the time.”

He said this last one kindly, his dark eyes sympathetic over the rims of his glasses.

Harry's head snapped up, her jaw working as she tried to reply. She knew he wasn't talking just about the mission, but she couldn't find the words to form a suitable remark. Merlin only shook his head.

“You're off fieldwork until that gunshot heals. I can wait for the report. But in the meantime, rest and get down to Nimue as soon as you are discharged.”

At the mention of Nimue, the head psychiatrist in Kinsgman, Harry made a face. She didn't dislike her colleague per say. She just hated talking about the hard missions afterwards. No one in Kingsman liked that part of the post mission protocol.

“I know you hate it. But this time, I think it's better if you go and I'm sure you know that as well,” He paused and pushed his glasses up before he continued, “A questioning agent is a dead agent. It would a blow not just to the Kingsman, but to me if Galahad went that way.”

He patted her arm again, rising and gathering up his stuff before leaving her feeling his touch like a brand on her skin.

Once she was released from the hospital, she kept her appointment with Nimue.

It was also the first time that she ended up on his doorstep with a bottle of fine Scotch and her heart too full to put into words what she felt.

But Mer-Andrew. He was Andrew at that moment-knew. Just like he always did and let her inside.

He was the one that took her coat. Took the Scotch, poured into glasses and sat her down in the cosy living room. He had also been the one to eventually take the glass from her hand, guide her lips to his and take her upstairs to his room to finish mapping her body with his own.

They never spoke of it afterwards.

But Harry knew that whenever she needed it, she could always go to Merlin and claim the sanctuary that he offered her with no strings attached.

_The Woman_

 She finds it more than a bit unsettling when she gets a ride down to the police station to get Lee's boy out of the mess he planted himself squarely in. She vaguely remembered him as an adorable child who had no real idea that his father was gone.  He had been adorable, she had noted in that detached way that she noticed that kittens and baby sloths were cute. She felt the same way regarding children and she had to wonder if it was because she'd never had them or had a normal life. Maybe if she had-

She cut off the thought as neatly as snapping a loose thread and smoothed her hands down the dark grey pinstriped fabric down her thighs and knees. Although it was perfect, she needed the gesture to divorce herself from what she had no control over. Right now, what was important was getting the boy out of jail and hopefully getting that debt paid and away from her conscience. Although far from her Catholic roots, the guilt and the weight of sins crept up on her once in a while.

She rubbed her forehead tiredly as the old spectre of Lee Unwin popped into her thoughts. On bad nights, she would see him, shoving her out of the way as he threw himself into the path of the explosion. She would see him upbraiding her, his eyes cold and dull like cheap glass as she tried to drown the memory in scotch or in Andrew's or other nameless men's arms. It was only then that she'd light a candle for him like she did with Iain.

She never told anyone about these thoughts. She'd be on her way out if she even hinted that she carried that much guilt over what was yet another test. Another training exercise and another dead recruit. Another year marked off in the Kingsman. Nothing more or less. She'd already seen more recruits wash out by the time Lancelot was decided. She supposed that Lee Unwin haunted her because of the wife and the son.

Most recruits didn't have families. They started out young so that they could utilize their skills and knowledge in the field and catch things that the older agents may have missed due to the inexorable generation gap. Or they were estranged from theirs, as Dragonet and Morgana were rumoured to be. Or they had split up from them for various reasons. She and she guessed Nimue and Tristan, were in the latter category. Gawain, Bedivere and Percival were a few of the agents that somehow kept a home and a family, much to Harry's bafflement.

She had enough on her hands getting home in one piece, keeping appearances of a university lecturer, and doing her missions and paperwork. Raising a family was beyond her comprehension. Even if she had been keen on it, she couldn't figure out exactly how it would be possible to do it.  She guessed, vaguely, that it was more work than it was really worth for an agent if the novels and occasional foray into a rom-com told her anything useful.

Occasionally, when there was more than just breathing time between missions, she'd sit and wonder if it _could_ be possible for her to have a family. After all, she had wanted it, once upon a time. She had been willing to put aside her own dreams for it. Those moods didn't last long, since she knew herself. Despite having cravings for companionship, she knew that she couldn't quite give up her solitude, her books and her perfectly arranged house. Her life as harrowing as it was, seemed positively put together compared to a domestic one.

She'd been in Gawain's house when his children were young and the sight of the chaos of clothing, toys, dishes and assorted messes were enough to make her thankful that she'd dodged that particular bullet. She knew that they were simply idle speculations that came and went. She wasn't the mothering type and she had heard Kay opine that she was perfectly made for the life of a Kingsman agent since she seemed to have ice water for blood and bollocks bigger than Arthur's. In the same breath, he had added that if she ever did spawn, it would be a full-grown assassin as deadly as the mother. There had been roaring laughter following that statement and she had decided to not enter the room and instead step out to the bar and have a couple of drinks as she mulled what exactly she felt about Kay's statement.

It had been intended as a compliment, she knew. A backhanded one, like most men in her circle tended to give. Their egos could only take so much crushing and she did recall, with grim amusement, that she had bested him during their weekly sparring session.  She drank down the scotch and held up a finger for another one, which the bartender complied with immediately.  She took a sip and swallowed, mulling the comment over still.

She would have normally brushed it off, but it was like a splinter under the skin. She finished off her drink and paid her tab. Drinking wasn't going to give her the answers she was looking for, but maybe Merlin could.

Deciding to visit him, she got one of the familiar black cabs and went to his place, thankful to find him deep into schematics and with more excellent whiskey at hand. She explained her situation to him and Merlin listened politely before he finally gave his opinion.

“Kay's a fool, first of all. He's a good agent, but he really is a fool. Not a malicious one, mind you. But he is one, nonetheless. It was a compliment on your skills, but also a commentary on how he sees you. Probably how most of the agents see you. They can't fathom why you aren't retired, at home with a doting husband and kiddies in a nice village house somewhere.”

Here, Merlin paused in his poring over schematics and took a sip of his whiskey.

“So they assume that it's because you're not the right kind of woman. They assumed that you would be like Isolde and then Elaine and when you turned out different, they hadn't a clue what to do with you.”

Harry winced at that. The first Isolde had retired out of field duty when a bomb had exploded too close to home and she had discovered at the hospital that she was pregnant. Although she had escaped with just minimal hearing loss in her right ear, she was done. Elaine had quit even earlier, when she had gotten married. Both Isolde and Elaine in the field were a good twelve to fourteen years younger than her and she felt quite out of place whenever they were on the same missions together.

They had gone to bed after that and she had gone on more missions. Solo ones, since Elaine was killed during a honeypot mission gone wrong and Isolde was deep under cover in Moscow. She was glad of the solitude and missions. It kept her from becoming maudlin.

And now, she was on her way to pay back Lee Unwin and try and start unravelling what Valentine, Sim cards and Lancelot's death had in common.

~*~*~*~*

She didn't need to take him out for a pint. She really shouldn't have.

Nor should she have been surreptitiously eyeing the son of her dead recruit.

But she had offered the pint to Eggsy, as he preferred to be called, and he had taken it up with alacrity. She hadn't meant to start ragging on him while they had been there. She had, as far as duty was concerned, discharged her debt honourably. She should have been flying out to America to follow leads.

But she had to admit that she had been intrigued by Eggsy. He wasn't what she had expected, even after poring over his records and making a small moue of distaste at all that wasted potential. There was still something of Lee there, despite the armour he had to wear to survive in the life Michelle Unwin had brought him up in. It was that, under the bluster and the chip on his shoulder that had her staying and calculating if he would be a potential candidate. As bloodless and mercenary as that sounded, he would make an excellent addition to the Kingsman agency.

She was about to broach the subject when they were interrupted by goons that were no doubt associates of Dean Barker. She knew that there was a high chance of a fight happening, rather than them leaving. They were there for payback and they valued a woman's opinion as much as they valued the law: Precious little.

She still hoped that they would let her be.  They had responded well enough when she had politely excused herself and walked past towards the doors of the Black Prince. She had her hand on the door when her hopes were dashed the minute one of the hangers on opened his mouth.

“If ye're lookin' for another rent boy, they're on Merring Street. Though I'm not sure that an old dyke like ye was into boys.”

Despite being old hand at the insults regarding her sexuality, it still stung. Maybe it was recent events. Maybe it was Kay's remark. She didn't know. But she wasn't going to just let it go.

She reached up and locked the first lock with her umbrella. “Manners.” The second lock was next. “Maketh.” Finally, the last lock was in place. “Woman.”

She turned to them, her face cold and expressionless as she faced them. They still grinned, thinking that this was still a big laugh. A big piss up, if she had the colloquialisms right.

“Do you know what that means?”

Blank faces, just like the time she had to go undercover as a teacher at a school to figure out the distribution ring of a notorious drug kingping in Upper Acton. She sighed.

“Well, let me teach you a lesson. Are we going to stand here, or are we going to fight?”

She knew that was all the impetus they needed. She didn't hesitate.

It was, she had to admit, soothing to her ego to have beaten those cretins into the carpet and to have Eggsy staring at her in open admiration.

She smoothed back a few errant curls from her chignon before sitting down and draining the last of the Guinness, which tasted even better than it ever had. She put the glass down and looked at Eggsy, who was still staring at her with the same expression, but with something dark and hungry added to it.

She flushed and there was an answering ache in her groin at the look in his eyes. It wasn't quite like the look Merlin would give her during their meet ups. It was the same intensity, but the way that Eggsy was looking at her was making her get wet and press her thighs together and hope he didn't notice what effect he was having on her.

It was just plain bloody wrong, to be getting worked up over her dead colleague's son. Yes, there wasn't much of an age difference as there otherwise would have been if she had been in her forties, but it was enough. She had Merlin. She had been in so many honeypot missions that she could get aroused practically on demand.

So why were those smouldering green eyes turning her insides to liquid and her nipples to stand at attention? She swallowed and patted her hair into place in an attempt to buy time before she had to leave and continue her work. He was still watching her, his eyes following her every move until she began to tell him about James and his death.

It was James that did the trick and she stood up, the mask perfectly in place, the manners hiding the tremor in her hands as she realized she was going to have to erase all of this from Eggsy's mind. In the end, she let herself trust him. Despite all of her training and instincts telling her otherwise. She trusted him to keep his mouth shut.

But one thing she didn't hesitate to do was to slip a tracker on him. She knew that there would be hell for him to pay later and she wasn't going to leave him hanging. She knew what kind of a man Dean Barker was. She wasn't about to leave Eggsy to the wolves. Not when he had been so much more than his file let on.

And if it had anything to do with how he looked at her, she ruthlessly quashed the thought.

~*~*~*~*

She was proud of him, to have made it that far. He was a shoo-in for Lancelot and Roxie was Elaine in all but name. That was all she felt when she had him at her house, showing him her office and the proper way to make a martini. She didn't think much of the proximity of him when she was mixing the drinks. Nor did she let herself linger on the drops on his lips or the way that his eyes held a banked heat in them.

It wasn't until she was standing behind him, guiding him through the steps that he surprised her.

His mouth was on hers in a flash, his hands pulling the cardigan she had thrown on over a tank top away while she did the same with garish puffy coat of his and the polo underneath. They broke off from kissing only long enough to get upstairs to her bedroom before stripping and resuming their kissing, which led to them exploring each other's bodies.

He slid down her body and between her legs faster than she had registered the action and had her actually biting her lip and tangling her fingers through his hair as he worked even more magic with that plush mouth of his.  She saw stars when he was done and while she was catching her breath and he was wiping his mouth, she had a pang of remorse. She couldn't seriously be doing this with Lee's little boy! She was a grown woman and an agent with more kills on her belt than most cops at the met. She had to be the voice of common sense here. She-

Her brain fritzed out when Eggsy kissed her and climbed on top of her. He only paused to lean over and look in the night stand drawer.

“Condoms?”

“No need.”

Her mouth twisted wryly at his puzzled look and he knew enough at that time to not question it and ruin the mood. He only paused again to get her ready, his fingers at her entrance to touch her just a bit before he was pressing the blunt head of his cock and-

He was in her. Slipped in easily and was now thrusting in and out of her, like a well-oiled piston. She wrapped her legs around his waist and her arms around him, their bodies moving slickly against each other.  His breathing was ragged in her ear and he made soft groans as he entered her. She listened, her own gasps torn out of her as he thrust harder, grinding his hips into her until she finally gave up her silence and screamed when he hit a particularly sensitive spot, leaving her to unravel, to come undone.

~*~*~*~*

He found her standing in the door way of her house after he had failed the test. She couldn't look at him because she was disappointed. But not just in him. She knew he would be too kind to shoot the damned dog. He hadn't run over the cat when he had stolen Dean's car. She couldn't expect him to do that to JB.

No. She was also disappointed in herself. In how she had crossed so many lines that twenty-four hours they had spent together. And he had now stolen a cab and shown up here, trying to explain why he couldn't go through it. She wanted to slam the door in his face and drown her sorrows in excellent whiskey, but that impulse was squashed by the hopeless look on his face and the fact that he had been one of the few that had seen her at her most vulnerable.

“Come in.”

She turned and left the door open, letting him follow if he wanted to. She heard his footsteps behind her as she was at the counter making them both drinks.

“I couldn't kill JB.”

He whispered as he came up behind her, his touch tentative as he wrapped his arms around her.

She stayed stiff until she felt his lips on her earlobe.

“It was a trick, Eggsy. To see how well you follow orders.”

He backed away and she marched over to the bathroom and showed him Mr. Pickles.

“I did it. Every Kingsman recruit does it. They're blanks. I shot Mr. Pickles and took him home, took care of him until he passed away from pancreatic cancer.”

Eggsy's eyes were nearly bugging out of his skull when he saw the stuffed dog.

“You stuffed your dog? Aww, Harry!”

“Oh do be quiet. He was a lovely dog.” She muttered, her cheeks going slightly pink at his comments.

Eggsy laughed and the atmosphere loosened up a tad. At least until Merlin called her up.

“Harry-”

She rubbed her forehead, swallowing hard at the headache that had been plaguing her on and off.

“Look, we'll talk about this later. Stay here and I'll sort this out when I get back.”

She told him curtly, turning around and going to do her duty.

They would sort it all out later.

_The Queen_

It was the smell that alerted her to her surroundings. It was like Dettol, but not quite. Antiseptic and stark and making her nose itch with the strength of it. She was lying on a hard bed and the sheets this time weren't as stiff. They were warm, unlike the other times she'd been in this place.

She had had whispers of consciousness earlier and she had noticed the same things whenever she had come close to waking up.  They had all been individual bits of a whole and it wasn't until now that she had enough sense of mind and strength to up it all together and finally breach that last obstacle to waking up.

Harry tried to open her eyes, but they felt as if they were gummed up together. Or taped shut. It had happened to her before, when she had been put under for her own good. Still, she tried to open them.

Her left eye opened easily, although it started to leak something awful at the bright lights. She snapped it shut and tried to not wonder as to why her right didn't open. Or why the right side of her face felt different than her left.

She opened her eye again and wiped the tears away, her hand shaking with the effort and making the feeling of wrongness increase. She let her hand drop as she examined her surroundings. She was in a hospital room. Not in England. The colours on the walls were different and the accents she could hear were nowhere near London or the outlying counties.

How had she ended up here?

She turned her head carefully, wincing at the pain in her stiff neck as she moved, at the tube that tugged at what no doubt was a tracheotomy. There was another tube across her face. A feeding tube that had been taped to her left cheek. She had been shot, she remembered that much. She had felt the pain. She should have been dead. How had she-

“Ah! Beatrice! You're awake! Just in time too! Your little brother just arrived. Once we get you stabilized, he'll take you home to England now that everything has calmed down.”

The doctor spoke with a slight Southern accent, his consonants smoothed out and almost blurred into softness. He went on as he moved closer to her, a bevy of nurses following while her aforementioned brother stood back and watched the proceedings with a poker face that only she could see the edges of it crumbling.

He was dressed in a suit and had his hair styled like she had taught him. The ring was on his hand.

He was a Kingsman, after all.

And she was back in the land of the living.

~*~*~*~*~

_The Knight known as Galahad_

_“Did you find her, Galahad? She might be a Jane Doe. Or she could be under the Pseudonym Beatrice De Vere. Either way: Did you find her, lad?”_

Merlin's voice buzzed in his ear the moment that he had walked into the room of the Jane Doe that had been found right after the church massacre and before the start of the whole world collectively losing its mind. There hadn't been much a breather between the two events. But there had been enough of a lull for someone to have noticed and called the police and the ambulance to either arrest or aid anyone that had survived.

The doctor that had spoken to Eggsy had confirmed that they thought there were no survivors. The woman lying on the pavement with a pool of blood around her head was thought to be dead. Until an EMT had pressed two fingers to her neck and found a sluggishly weak pulse.

She was rushed into surgery, went into cardiac arrest, but stubbornly pulled through. Even if she was in a coma that had lasted nigh on two weeks now, she was still alive and that was something with the horrific injuries she had incurred.

“Broken ribs. Stab wounds. Deep muscle bruising. Getting shot in the head at close range, but point blank. We think the shooter hadn't ever held a gun before, and that coupled with those glasses, saved her. She lost the vision in that eye and will have some motor and speech difficulties, but we won't know that until she wakes up. But she's alive and that's more than others can say.”

He had listened to all of that with a blank face, trying to rein in his emotions and not react to Merlin swearing softly through the comm link.

“Could I see her? I want to make sure that it is my sister, Beatrice.” Eggsy asked, injecting just the right tone of concern by letting his own emotions bleed through the act just that once. Although he was sure that it was Harry, he didn't want to get his hopes up only have them cruelly dashed. He didn't think that he could bear it if she really was dead.

He had been stunned when Valentine had shot her, jumping at the loud sound of the gunshot and nearly vomiting afterwards when he had seen her fall. He had left to go to headquarters after that, trying to keep it together. If he had stayed, would he have been able to see the ambulance and alerted Merlin? Would he have had enough anger and to fuel his actions until the very end?

He didn't know the answers to those questions. But he would have liked to think that nothing would have changed. He would have made the same decisions. Fought the same battles and destroyed Valentine and his horrific plans. But part of him called him a liar. That small part also told him that he would have been worried about Harry. He would have been distracted at the very least.

He certainly wouldn't have gone to the princess right after, that was certain.

He blushed hotly at the memory and at the small curl of guilt in his gut that followed it. It wasn't as if they had something, he and Harry. Hell, he didn't even know her real name! He sure as hell was sure it wasn't Harriet that was for certain. So how would he know exactly what they had going on?

He didn't have time to worry about that, since the doctor had made some affirmative reply that he had missed and was walking towards the room that he hoped held Harry.

_“I doubt that Harry's going to be amused that you called her your sister, Galahad.”_

Eggsy snorted, but didn't reply. He didn't want to make the doctor think he was off his rocker before he had confirmed that it indeed was Harry.

“Here we are. Go right in. She's in a coma, but she's stable. I wish I could tell you when exactly she will wake up, but we simply don't know with that injury of hers. Despite being in great shape, we just don't know.”

The doctor explained apologetically as he stepped aside and let Eggsy in.

_“Oh Thank God!”_

 Merlin's broken exclamation came exactly at the time that Harry opened her eye and looked at the doctor, then straight at Eggsy. She smiled briefly before her eye closed. The right and most of her head was hidden under a huge swath of bandages. Her hair had been shaved on that side and the rest was snarled and tangled in greasy clumps. Eggsy felt a pang of sorrow at seeing that hair which was usually shiny and put up in a fancy do, look like that.

Harry's skin too, was dry and pale and her time in a coma had made her look gaunt and older than her years. She looked fragile to Eggsy and it made the rage against Valentine rise up again. If he could kill him again, he would have. Not only did he destroy the world and kill millions of innocent people, he had hurt Harry.

Although he didn't want to admit it, as he watched the doctor talk to her and do some preliminary testing before Eggsy could sit with her, Harry was done as an agent.

“The tubes will start coming out tomorrow, just a precaution.” The doctor apologized when Harry made a face at the inconvenience.

_“Of course she's going to hate that. Won't give her a chance to fob you off if you head in a direction she doesn't like. For once, Hero Hart will have to listen.”_

Eggsy snorted, quickly making it into a laugh when both the doctor and Harry looked at him.

Hero. Oh it was too good! He wasn't going to let that one go so easily, that was for certain! He mentally crowed out at that for a bit longer before tucking it away for future use. Right now, he had to focus and he wouldn't be that much of an ass to do such a thing when Harry was as weak as a kitten and still not a hundred percent with it.

“Sorry. Allergies.”

The doctor seemed to accept that explanation and left them, telling Eggsy they had twenty minutes to visit and that tomorrow he'd be able to come for longer.

Eggsy murmured some polite platitude before the door closed, leaving Harry and Eggsy staring at each other, both unsure of what would happen next.

What happened next ended up with Eggsy collapsing in the chair next to the bed and grabbing Harry's free hand tightly.

His breathing was ragged and his eyes looked suspiciously bright as he sat there, his hands around Harry's own tightening until she tried to pull away.

_“Eggsy, lad, let her go. You're hurting her. Let go. She's not going anywhere right now. She'll be going with you when she does. Let go. That's it. That's it.”_

Eggsy did, clearing his throat before speaking.  Even knowing that Merlin was listening, he didn't care. He had to tell her before he lost the chance. They both had made the mistake of assuming there would be more time. He had learned the hard way that wasn't always the case.

“I'm sorry Harry. I'm sorry. I just... I know we didn't leave on good terms and when Valentine shot you and then V-day happened...”

He trailed off and thumbed at the tears that were collecting in the corners of his eyes while Harry squeezed his hand weakly and silently cursed the tube cutting off her speech so that she could tell him it was in the past. Maybe tomorrow, when the medical paraphernalia was gone she would.

“We thought you were dead and there's been too much death. Even for us.”

She squeezed his hand, a bit harder this time to show him that she understood.

He cleared his throat and paused, his gaze focused inward for a bit before turning to her again.

“Merlin's working on the transfer as we speak. You'll be back in headquarters soon.”

It was then that the doctor and a bevy of nurses appeared and Eggsy took his leave.

It was a start.

~*~*~*~*~

_The Queen-Part 2_

She knew, by the way that Merlin was looking at her that he was going to say something that she wasn’t going to like very much. She knew him that well and she also knew that he was bribing her with a strong cuppa and biscuits to soften the blow.

She had been out of hospital for at least six months, most of which had been spent doing physiotherapy.

Despite the grim pronouncements of the American doctors, Harry came off lighter than otherwise predicted. Her right hand did shake when she was over tired, but her balance and co-ordination were both fine. She had to overcompensate for her eye being gone and had problems with depth perception, but they were minor annoyances. Not like having to limp using a cane once in a while and having headaches that had her out for a day. Those were the worst things she had to deal with.

And Eggsy’s mother henning her now that she was completely out of danger. A hovering that was almost on par with Merlin’s own and Nimue’s check-ins. Despite hating being under so much surveillance, she begrudgingly accepted it. She had been too close to death and after the massacre that V-Day had left behind, she could understand why they’d be a little too over-protective of her.

“You spoil me, Andrew.”

She murmured as she gratefully sank down into the wingback chair and took the cuppa gratefully from Merlin, who only made a small sound at her comment before sitting and picking up his own cup with lemon.

“How can I not when we were so close to losing you?”

He countered, his expression bland, but his words holding a deep undercurrent of emotion just barely held in check. He seemed a bit hurt and Harry could have slapped herself. The last thing that she needed to do was insult all of his efforts in trying to nice to her even when she didn’t really feel like she merited it.

“I appreciate it. I really do. It wasn’t meant to be snide.”

Merlin lowered his head and took a sip of his tea, allowing her to do the same. They held the silence for a bit longer before he finally broke it.

“I’m not going to insult your intelligence, Hero. You know why I we are sitting here having this conversation, I am more than sure.”

Harry swallowed the tea and put the cup on the table in between them. She was sure that if her emotions got the better of her, she’d probably spill tea all over herself. Sometimes, she did lose control of her hand and when that had happened, she knew that there was no way she'd be able to keep from accidentally shooting someone or worse, dropping a weapon at the worst possible time in a mission. No. She wasn't going to endanger anyone with her weakness, as much as it galled her to admit it even to herself.

“As much as I don’t want it to be true, I know that I’m not a field agent any longer. Not with a hand tremor and depth perception problems. Although I am a senior agent, I hardly doubt that I am the leading candidate for Arthur. So now the question is: What am I suitable for?”

Merlin cleared his throat and put down his own cup before pulling out a thick dossier and pushing it across the table to her.

“Guinevere. If you are so inclined.”

~*~*~*~*

Eggsy entered the house quietly enough, but she knew his step. The way he seemed to bounce on his toes and move in quick strides as to not get detected. But she still knew that it was him. She waited though, until he was in the parlour before looking up from the dossier that Merlin had given her with the promise to give her answer within twenty-four hours.

“I thought you were in Tallinn.”

She greeted him, her eye still on the paperwork when he came in to sit next to her on the large sofa.

“Hmm? Yeah. I was. Job got done quicker than we thought. So I came to see how you were doing, since I know you must be bored sitting around rather than being in the field again.”

She smiled briefly before raising her head and looking at Eggsy. She took off the glasses she needed all the time now and rubbed her weary face. She still wasn't used to how much effort reading was with her diminished vision. The glasses helped, but it fell short of having her eye back again.

“Eggsy...My dear, sweet, boy. Thank you for your optimism, but there's no way I can go back. Not with this,” she held up her trembling hand, “and certainly not with my vision impaired as it was. No. I fear that my days as a field agent are done.”

Eggsy's eyes widened as he came closer and telegraphed his intent to wrap his arm around her shoulders. She allowed it, since she knew that it was more to comfort himself rather than her.  Once they were settled, he rested his chin on her head and absent-mindedly played with the end of her plait.

“So that's it? You're off Kingsman then? They just boot you out when you're no use to them and stuff?”

He asked, the edge of anger coming out clear as he spoke.

“Well, people do retire. But then it is to work at the manor. Tech and weapons and whatnot. But there are positions for retired field agents. Like Vivian, Nimue Morgause, Uther, Gorlois and... Guinevere.”

The last was said with a bit of a pause that made Eggsy look at her with understanding in his eyes.

“So who are you now? Gorlois? Uther?”

She laughed, yet was pleased that he didn't automatically assume she would take on a feminine mantle.

“Guinevere, actually. It's Arthur's right hand man in anything he does. No actual legwork, just behind the scenes with data retrieval. Guinevere keeps Arthur honest more or less.”

Here, she smiled a bit self-deprecatingly.

“And let's face it: I got off lucky, but I can't be just pretty enough like I was just another woman in order to collect information like Isolde or Elaine could. Valentine made sure of that.”

She hid the bitterness as she gestured to the right side of her face with her hand. Plastic surgery had done wonders, but there was still the scar that her hair couldn't hide. Nor could the milky discolouration of her blinded eye be easily disguised. Maybe in a man, they would be a sign of a battle hard fought and hard won. But in a woman, especially one of her age, it was a defect.

It would also help to identify her much more easily and that would defeat the purpose of being a spy completely.  Eggsy didn't say anything, since he knew that she wasn't being overly critical. He had to admit that Harry had most men pegged correctly. She'd be better off working in the shadows, rather than a field agent.

“So what happened to the last Guinevere? Cause Chester King was anything but _that_.”

Eggsy asked, putting sarcastic emphasis on the last word. Harry swallowed hard before she answered. She actually liked the former Guinevere.

“Chester killed her when she got too close to the truth. Bors found her body in some filthy bedsit.” She shook her head and reached out for the glass, not caring that her hand was shaking quite badly. Eggsy intercepted her and poured out more scotch and held up the glass for her to sip until her grip was steadier.

“As if she was nothing more than rubbish to be disposed of at his whim. Cordelia did a hard job and she did it as well as she possibly could. She deserved more than to end up in a filthy bedsit. Much more.”

The last was said in a quiet whisper that had her being pulled into Eggsy's arms and held tightly.

Although she was touched at this it still made her feel like they had switched ages and experience. She shouldn't have enjoyed having him there, like that as she was at that moment. She was his mentor, for Christ's sake! She should be doing more than cuddling up to him like Roxy no doubt was doing with Merlin.

Roxy and Merlin had been a new development that she had woken up to. Merlin had explained it sheepishly when she had made a pass at him once she was out of the hospital wing and had been gently rebuffed.

Although she had been slightly embarrassed, she held no resentment against Merlin or Roxy in regards to how the situation had panned out. She was glad that he had finally found someone that was it for him. Harry and Merlin were well aware that they weren't it for each other and were together for comfort and friendship rather than some romantic ideal, so Merlin getting that with Roxy was just grand.

Besides, he had been all too aware that Eggsy was more than just her recruit. She didn't dare ask him how much he knew about her and Eggsy, but he was a smart man and always read between the lines. Thinking about that, she looked at Eggsy's face and breathed a quiet sigh of relief at not seeing the glasses on his face.

“Didn't want Merlin to see us. Even though he must know by now how it is between you and I, Hero.”

Eggsy replied, smiling a little as he figured out why she had looked at him. She flushed faintly at being found out, but Eggsy only laughed as he kissed her, gently at first, but deepening the kiss as it went on.  He tasted like mint and rosewater and she nearly lost herself in his taste and the softness of his mouth.

He pushed her down then, still not breaking the kiss, and let his hands roam down her body. His hands were under her cardigan her hands were under his shirt when he broke it off.

“I can't do this here. Not as if you were some one night stand. If we're going to do this, we're going to do it proper-like.”

Harry was confused until she found herself swept up in his arms and carried up to her bedroom and gently placed on the bed before Eggsy was all over her again.

“Eggsy? When you said proper-like, did you mean-”

Eggsy laughed, letting his head fall in between the juncture of her neck and shoulder before he moved slightly to the side and produced a velvet jewellery box.

She breathed in sharply at the sight of it. She hadn't seen one of them since she had been proposed to the first time and if that was what Eggsy was thinking of doing...

“Before you say anything about your being too old for me, or damaged, or not being able to give me what I need...I just want you, Harry.  For better or for worse, till death do us part and all that. I love you, Hero Imogen Hart and I hope you feel the same, or else I just made a right tit of meself here.”

It was with that he opened the velvet box to reveal a modestly sized diamond surrounded by emeralds and waited for her to speak.

Eggsy's proposal was miles away from the polished production that Richard had asked her to marry her in.  Yet, she knew that Eggsy meant every single one of the words more than Richard ever had.

“Eggsy. You haven't. You never will with me. I promise. Now come here, dear heart.”

Eggsy let out a sigh of relief before taking the ring and putting it on Harry's finger.

“Gladly, Mrs. Unwin.”

_The Ever After_

“Eggsy.”

Eggsy ducked his head at the quiet rebuke and stopped fidgeting and craning his head to look at all the stained glass windows in St. James. It wasn’t her first pick for the christening, but it was in England and central enough that her family and Eggy’s mother could attend the baptism.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve never been in one of these before.” Eggsy whispered, trying yet again to not gape at the decorations and the statues in the church.

Harry laughed quietly and shushed the baby in her arms, who had begun to stir from sleep.

“It is something, I’ll give you that. But stop making it obvious.”

Eggsy grumbled, but that was cut short by the baby waking up in earnest and necessitating for Eggsy to soothe his child as they waited for the priest to finish the rites and not bore the rest of the guests. Already, Merlin and Roxy were fidgeting and Harry wished she could prod the priest along to hurry it up.

But thankfully he stopped and turned to all of them and gestured for the baby to be placed over the font.

“And what do you call this child?”

Eggsy looked at Harry and although she had gotten carte blanche for the name for the unexpected surprise of a child, she knew that Eggsy had something else in mind. And she loved Eggsy. So…

“Lee Andrew James Unwin.”

The rest of the ceremony was lost to her, since as sappy as it sounded, she was only focused on the nearly blinding smile of happiness on Eggsy’s face.

She could live with it, just seeing how much it meant to him.

It was worth it.

END

**Author's Note:**

> Hero-It fit in with the Harry part and I wanted to show that her parents aren't as constrained with the middle class occupation of trendy names. It is not uncommon in Britain as a name. Imogen is also not uncommon, hence the middle name.  
> The Round Table-I know we just got a taste of the world in the movie, but I wanted to have a broader perspective and include others in the legends and to have at least two female code names in the field. As with everything, it is a bit sexist as to how they are assigned.  
> Dog test-Even though there are two spots, it is still an important test to pass and that's why Eggsy is not allowed as Lancelot despite it being available.  
> Plot-I didn't want to do a word by word retelling of the movie, hence the glossing over of certain things and changes in dialogue as per suitable purposes.  
> Religion-Harry is Catholic in this version. I know that in the movie, he probably put that in the speech as one thing to needle that woman with, but it just fit in perfectly here, so I used it as her religion. The baptism is abbreviated because even as a Catholic, they bored me when I had to go through them.


End file.
